“But not in that dress,” said Eugenie, aghast.  “They will arrest you.”  “Oh, how I wish they would!” cried Virginia.  And her eyes flashed so that Eugenie was frightened.  “How I wish they would!”

Miss Renault regarded her friend with something of adoration from beneath her black lashes.  It was about five in the afternoon when they started out together under Virginia’s white parasol, Eugenie’s slimmer courage upheld by her friend’s bearing.  We must remember that Virginia was young, and that her feelings were akin to those our great-grandmothers experienced when the British held New York.  It was as if she had been born to wear the red and white of the South.  Elderly gentlemen of Northern persuasion paused in their homeward walk to smile in admiration, —­some sadly, as Mr. Brinsmade.  Young gentlemen found an excuse to retrace their steps a block or two.  But Virginia walked on air, and saw nothing.  She was between fierce anger and exaltation.  She did not deign to drop her eyes as low as the citizen sergeant and guard in front of Puss Russell’s house (these men were only human, after all); she did not so much as glance at the curious people standing on the corner, who could not resist a murmur of delight.  The citizen sergeant only smiled, and made no move to arrest the young lady in red and white.  Nor did Puss fling open the blinds and wave at her.

“I suppose its because Mr. Russell won’t let her,” said Virginia, disconsolately, “Genie, let’s go to headquarters, and show this Yankee General Fremont that we are not afraid of him.”

Eugenie’s breath was taken away by the very boldness of this proposition..  She looked up timidly into Virginia’s face, and hero-worship got the better of prudence.

The house which General Fremont appropriated for his use when he came back from Europe to assume command in the West was not a modest one.  It still stands, a large mansion of brick with a stone front, very tall and very wide, with an elaborate cornice and plate-glass windows, both tall and broad, and a high basement.  Two stately stone porches capped by elaborate iron railings adorn it in front and on the side.  The chimneys are generous and proportional.  In short, the house is of that type built by many wealthy gentlemen in the middle of the century, which has best stood the test of time,—­the only type which, if repeated to-day, would not clash with the architectural education which we are receiving.  A spacious yard well above the pavement surrounds it, sustained by a wall of dressed stones, capped by an iron fence.  The whole expressed wealth, security, solidity, conservatism.  Alas, that the coal deposits under the black mud of our Western states should, at length, have driven the owners of these houses out of them!  They are now blackened, almost buried in soot; empty, or half-tenanted by boarders, Descendants of the old families pass them on their way to business or to the theatre with a sigh.  The sons of those who owned them have built westward, and west-ward again, until now they are six miles from the river.